Elon Musk: Apple's App Store Fees Are a 'De Facto Global Tax on the Internet'

[turbineseaplane]

Yes and No, try to repair a tesla yourself and they will likely cut you off from supercharging and charing on any other networks.

Just like repairing your MacBook cuts of your warranty

This isn't hard.

Apple is no saint compared to Tesla here folks

 

[w5jck]

Coming from a guy who called someone trying to rescue children in a cave "Pedo guy", I'm not surprised. Musk really needs to keep his personal thoughts to himself.

 

[bobbie424242]

As expected, people here are PISSED.
Gotta make Apple, your best friend company that always do what's best for you the valued and milkable Apple consumer, the first 3 billion dollars company !

 

[WiseAJ]

Why not let the market decide what is fair and what is too much financial benefit? Why do politicians and some developers who make good products but have no idea how to distribute and serve their customers, “think” a certain percentage is too much?

The market has decided, but these whining companies don't agree with the outcome so they are trying to fix the results by bribing politicians to pretend to care about something they know absolutely nothing about.

 

[barnyard]

AWS is a tax on the internet. Guess Amazon should just do it for free too.

 

[farewelwilliams]

I don't understand why all the Apple fanboys defend Apple so vigorously in this app store fee debate. Do they not realize that Apple's behavior is not at all in their interest?

Try developing an app for iOS and you'll see all the free services you get paid for by the App Store cut.

It saved me $10k from not having to pay Google Maps. And that's just one among hundreds of other free things.

 

[MuGeN PoWeR]

says the guy who charges $199/month for autopilot feature!

 

[the future]

How much more unhinged and incoherent can the guy get? Jeez …

I have no real interest in cars, but I sincerely hope that Apple and/or the german and japanese carmakers soon put this arrogant little j**k in his place.

 

[turbineseaplane]

I think some folks here are maybe too young to remember the breakup of the Bell System

I guess we have to redo some of this stuff each generation

 

[farewelwilliams]

Coming from a guy who called someone trying to rescue children in a cave "Pedo guy", I'm not surprised. Musk really needs to keep his personal thoughts to himself.

you do know that Vern (cave diver) was only there to sell a story to hollywood and wanted the ACTUAL DIVERS to "suffer" for leaving him out of the loop, right?

 

[InnocenceMyth]

Elon Musk needs to be medicated.

 

[AppliedMicro]

Yes, he may be a megalomaniac that gives his kids funny names, promotes online pyramid schemes (…coins), lead a company that has had its own walled garden approach at car service.

He‘s not wrong about Apple though.

Although I‘d rather call it a tax on smartphones, not the internet.

 

[farewelwilliams]

He’s not an engineer. He’s never been educated as an engineer. He has an Economics degree from the University of Pennsylvania. How a rumor of dropping out of graduate school @ Stanford studying engineering to pursue his fortunes started says everything about how lazy people are to research others.

It reminds me of the rumor that my old boss Steven P. Jobs was studying Physics @ Reid University. He never did. Or the claim that Tim Cook is just another MBA when he graduated in Industrial Engineering from Auburn University.

My fellow Mechanical Engineering grads and I get real tired of the illustrious claims about Elon Musk just because he hired a bunch of fellow Mechanical Engineers ex-NASA who make him an icon for today with SpaceX. He’s basically a very successful venture capitalist like Mark Cuban.

you don't need a degree to be an engineer. i use about 5% of what i learned from my CS degree in my actual software engineering job.

elon literally is a software engineer as he worked on Zip2. anyone can be an engineer.

 

[farewelwilliams]

So Elon fell out of bed this morning with only one thought on his mind, slag off Apple publically?

comment came after a news story today about a book claiming Tim Cook told Elon "f--- you"

 

[Khedron]

It's interesting to me that others feel they have a handle on how much it costs to run an App Store. Consider the backend: data center, computers, power, cooling, maintenance, code reviews, etc.

There's a cost associated with the App Store and then of course there's some revenue that should be associated with it too. Is Apple just supposed to eat the cost? Give me a fricking break.

What I hear is "Man, Apple makes a ton of money... I wish I had some of that... and since I don't, I'm going to bitch about it in the press and litigate it in the courts..."

Pretty sure there are high costs associated with providing access to the internet, yet your ISP doesn’t demand 30% of all the transactions you do online.

 

[Devyn89]

How is this a tax? Taxes are collected by government, last I checked Apple was not a government (though they make enough money to be). Also lol at this guy criticizing a walled garden (as others in this thread have already said). More billionaires throwing shade at each other.

 

[cmaier]

Elon Musk is a de facto annoyance tax on the internet

 

[turbineseaplane]

How is this a tax?

He said "De Facto"
It's right in the headline

 

[ItsSoShiny]

I guess that extra $4k I would have to pay to get software unlock to make my car self driving isn't a tax at all? wait my bad just checked the site and it is 10k. I guess the same software unlock is way different on the more expensive model S. LOL

 

[antiprotest]

I think it is a bad analogy, but even if we accept it, then even 1% would be a "tax", then my response would be "So what if it is a tax?" It does not help or change the discussion in any way.

 

[Bug-Creator]

you do know that Vern (cave diver) was only there to sell a story to hollywood

Doesn't matter.

Act like a 12 year old, get taken as serious as a 12 year old.....

 

[ElRojito]

Okay, then get rid of the current plan and start charging usage fees like AWS/Azure/GCP. The more downloads your app has, the more money you owe. The more of Apple's infrastructure you use, the more you pay.

 

[JahBoolean]

Nice way to get some more free real estate on social media Elon. I'm wondering what real issues will miss proper coverage because of this a$$'s ego and communication strategy.

 

[turbineseaplane]

Everyone talking about "taxes" - please go google "de facto"

 

[Khedron]

I guess that extra $4k I would have to pay to get software unlock to make my car self driving isn't a tax at all? wait my bad just checked the site and it is 10k. I guess the same software unlock is way different on the more expensive model S. LOL

No it’s not. It’s a fixed price for a well defined feature.

Instead, imagine if your car manufacturer wanted 30% of the money you spend on fuel and tolls.